


Basically Guaranteed

by tsukum



Category: Subarashiki Kono Sekai | The World Ends With You
Genre: Canonical Character ''''Death'''', Canonical Character Death, Dead Friend Joshua, Drabble, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-05-13 04:30:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5694820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsukum/pseuds/tsukum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neku's best friend, Joshua, dies on the way to the CAT mural. Neku thinks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Basically Guaranteed

Neku actually only cries once when Joshua dies. He cries once immediately after finding out, violently and pathetically. Then he stops completely. Others think that he’s gone numb, and it is partially that, but the truth is that he is thinking. He is Thinking. He is Thinking Thinking Thinking.

Like the way he is right now, lying awake in his bed at 1:43 AM. Thinking.

(He probably has that look on his face that he always used to get when he was Thinking, that would make Joshua lean in and push his bangs behind his ear with the eraser of his mechanical pencil and say “Hello, Earth to Neku?”)

(That kind of Thinking.)

He remembers late nights with Joshua at Wildkat— neither of the boys’ respective parents were home that much, anyway— leaning in close to listen to Mr. H explain to them about the Game. (Neku couldn’t see the Game, but Joshua lied and told Mr. H he could, so Mr. H let him stay and listen. So Neku wouldn’t feel left out.) He remembers Mr. H talking about which souls are selected for the Game. People who died before they were supposed to. 

“Accidents and stuff like that.” He’d said while drying mugs. “Things that go against the odds, tricks of fate. Unfair things. Oh, and suicides are basically guaranteed.”

“Guaranteed?” It had been Joshua who’d said it. It had made Neku uneasy.

“Well, yeah. You’re not ever supposed to kill yourself.”

Even if Joshua really had  _ fallen _ into the rut of the subway tracks on the way to the CAT mural, like the official police report said— something which caused Neku nagging, gnawing, doubt somewhere unfriendly in the back of his skull— even that was still an accident, wasn’t it? 

Now Neku pictures Joshua alone and afraid at Hachiko on the first day of a Game. Pictures him jostled and shoved and pushed around by desperate Players who, Neku thinks, won’t know what a pragmatic genius Joshua is when he puts his mind to things, won’t see how creative and powerful his Soul must be— they’ll just see a skinny, confused kid with a squeaky voice. Who’d team up with Joshua in the first place? Neku pictures Joshua frightened, hurt, pleading, erased by what he imagines Noise must look like. He’s never seen them himself, but Joshua tends to be at his most talkative after nightmares. Tended to be.

(Countless sleepovers where Joshua had pulled himself up from the futon mumbling and crying, Neku awake too now, the click of the floor lamp as the string was pulled, Neku’s bedroom a safe and familiar place, the feeling of the casual sleepovers on school nights, the plastic wrappers of the convenience store bento dinners in the wastebasket. Neku would sit up and just let Joshua talk. And Joshua would talk, he would talk and talk and talk. Red-rimmed too much seeing eyes.  _ They always scream like it hurts.) _

(A few times when this happened, Neku would reach out and hold Joshua’s hand silently. A few times when this happened, Joshua would reach out and hold Neku’s. Joshua had a habit of running his thumb over the back of Neku’s hand absently. It made Neku’s heart jump double-dutch and he silently counted the seconds each time until Joshua did it again. They never talked about if this meant anything and the fact that it made Neku so happy even though it was when Joshua was so sad made Neku sick at himself.)

(Neku rolls over in bed, head pounding from insomnia.)  ...And then even assuming Joshua found a partner… never mind that Joshua’s terrible at opening up to new people at first. He’s abrasive. If it’s the kind of person Joshua’s incompatible with, they’d both be doomed. Or what if it’s someone who’ll assume Joshua is weak and take advantage of him? All Neku knows is that surviving the game has something to do with how well you sync mentally with your partner.

It’s when he realizes this that it becomes very clear to him what he is going to do. In fact, it’s been at the back of his head all along. He wonders how he hasn’t known that he knew it all this time. Under the sheets, Neku flexes his hand once, as if remembering how to use it for the first time in a while.

Basically guaranteed. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> this was a spreedwrite! i wrote it in one hour! yaaaay!
> 
>  
> 
> i swear to god i can only write different dead friend joshua AUs!!!


End file.
